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2 Fuel 9 (211) Contents lists available at ScienceDirect Fuel journal homepage: Co-combustion of pulverized coal and solid recovered fuel in an entrained flow reactor General combustion and ash behaviour Hao Wu a,, Peter Glarborg a, Flemming Jappe Frandsen a, Kim Dam-Johansen a, Peter Arendt Jensen a, Bo Sander b a Department of Chemical and Biochemical Engineering, Technical University of Denmark, 28 Kgs. Lyngby, Denmark b DONG Energy Power A/S, Kraftvæksvej 53, 7 Fredericia, Denmark article info abstract Article history: Received 29 September 21 Received in revised form 25 January 211 Accepted 25 January 211 Available online 19 February 211 Keywords: Pulverized coal combustion Co-combustion Solid recovered fuel Ash deposition Waste Co-combustion of a bituminous coal and a solid recovered fuel (SRF) was carried out in an entrained flow reactor, and the influence of additives such as NaCl, PVC, ammonium sulphate, and kaolinite on cocombustion was investigated. The co-combustion experiments were carried out with SRF shares of 7.9 wt.%, 14.8 wt.% and 25 wt.%, respectively. The effect of additives was evaluated by maintaining the share of secondary fuel (mixture of SRF and additive) at 14.8 wt.%. The experimental results showed that the fuel burnout, NO and SO 2 emission in co-combustion of coal and SRF were decreased with increasing share of SRF. The majority of the additives inhibited the burnout, except for NaCl which seemed to have a promoting effect. The impact of additives on NO emission was mostly insignificant, except for ammonium sulphate which greatly reduced the NO emission. For SO 2 emission, it was found that all of the additives increased the S-retention in ash. Analysis of the bulk composition of fly ash from different experiments indicated that the majority of S and Cl in the fuels were released to gas phase during combustion, whereas the K and Na in the fuels were mainly retained in ash. When co-firing coal and SRF, approximately 99 wt.% of the K and Na in fly ash was present in water insoluble form such as aluminosilicates or silicates. The addition of NaCl, PVC, and ammonium sulphate generally promoted the vaporization of Na and K, resulting in an increased formation of water soluble alkalis such as alkali chlorides or sulphates. The vaporization degree of Na and K was found to be correlated during the experiments, suggesting an interaction between the vaporization of Na and K during pulverized fuel combustion. By collecting deposits on an air-cooled probe during the experiments, it was found that the ash deposition propensity in cocombustion was decreased with increasing share of SRF. The addition of NaCl and PVC significantly increased the ash deposition propensity, whereas the addition of ammonium sulphate or kaolinite showed a slight reducing effect. The chlorine content in the deposits generally implied a low corrosion potential during co-combustion of coal and SRF, except for the experiments with NaCl or PVC addition. Ó 211 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. 1. Introduction Direct co-combustion of coal and secondary fuels in a pulverized coal-fired power plant is recognized as one of the most convenient and advantageous methods to replace part of coal consumption by less CO 2 -emitting fuels such as biomass and waste [1]. Besides the effect on net CO 2 reduction, co-combustion of coal and secondary fuels may influence the operation and performance of a boiler. In order to evaluate the possible impact of adding a secondary fuel to a pulverized coal-fired power plant and to optimize the technology, a number of co-combustion investigations have been carried out in full-scale boilers [2 5], pilot-scale reactors Corresponding author. Tel.: ; fax: address: haw@kt.dtu.dk (Hao Wu). [6 11], and laboratory-scale setups [12,13]. The commonly tested secondary fuels were straw [2,3,6,7,9], wood [4,5,7,1], sewage sludge [1,14,15], and waste derived fuels [1,16,17]. The investigations addressed the fuel burnout [3,7], SO 2 and NO emission [4,7], ash deposition and corrosion [2,6,8,1,11], fly ash qualities [6,18], formation and emission of fine particles [14,19], and the performance of SCR system in co-combustion [14]. Solid recovered fuel (SRF) derived from nonhazardous waste streams such as industrial waste and bulky waste is considered as an advantageous secondary fuel to be co-fired in pulverized coal-fired power stations [2]. Although waste is normally regarded as a highly heterogeneous fuel with low thermal value, the production technologies of SRF can significantly improve the combustion properties of solid waste. After processing steps such as screening, mechanical sorting and size reduction, the lower heating value of SRF can become approximately 2 MJ/kg (dry /$ - see front matter Ó 211 Elsevier Ltd. All rights reserved. doi:1.116/j.fuel

3 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) basis) [2], which is comparable to biomass such as straw and wood. Besides, SRF can be produced as a fluffy form, and it has the possibility to be injected into a pulverized coal-fired boiler directly, by using a similar injection method that has been applied for grinded straw particles [21]. Moreover, since SRF normally contains 4 8 wt.% of biogenic components [2], co-combustion of coal and SRF will reduce the net CO 2 emissions from a pulverized coal-fired power plant. This technique also has the potential to increase the efficiency of utilizing waste fuels, as the electrical efficiency of a pulverized coal-fired plant is usually 1 2% higher than that of a dedicated waste incineration plant. Furthermore, if the SRF contains lower nitrogen and sulphur content than coal, the emissions of NO x and SO x from the coal-fired boiler may be decreased by co-firing coal with the SRF. Besides the advantages mentioned above, several technical issues may be associated with co-combustion of coal and SRF. In comparison with coal, SRF is usually characterized by high chlorine content (.3.8 wt.%, dry basis [2,22]). When coal is co-fired with SRF, the high chlorine content in SRF may aggravate the ash deposition and corrosion problems in the boiler, since the organically associated alkalis in coal and SRF may react with gaseous chlorine and generate alkali chlorides which can promote the deposit formation and corrosion of superheaters. Besides, the content of trace elements in SRF may be considerably higher (sometimes one order of magnitude higher) than that of coal [2,22]. This is likely due to that SRF may contain waste fractions with high trace element concentration, such as CCA impregnated wood and plastics with stabilizers [23]. Therefore, co-combustion of coal and SRF may significantly increase the trace element emission from a pulverized coal-fired power plant, and generate fine particles which are potentially more harmful than those from coal combustion [17]. In addition, since SRF is a more heterogeneous fuel than coal, the variation of SRF properties may be significant in practical operations and may greatly influence co-combustion of coal and SRF. Furthermore, co-firing of coal and SRF may affect the fly ash quality, fine particle formation, and the performance of the SCR system in a pulverized coal-fired power plant. As a consequence, a systematic evaluation of co-combustion of coal and SRF is necessary in order apply this technique in a full-scale plant. In order to investigate co-combustion of coal and SRF, it is desirable to study the combustion behaviour of the fuel mixture in conditions similar to a pulverized coal-fired plant. With this purpose, co-combustion of a bituminous coal and a SRF was carried out in an entrained flow reactor (EFR) in this work. During the experiments, the coal was co-fired with different share of SRF (7.9 wt.%, 14.8 wt.%, and 25 wt.%). Besides, in order to evaluate the influence of SRF property variation, additives such as NaCl, PVC, ammonium sulphate (AmSulf), and kaolinite were blended with the mixture of coal and SRF, and combusted in the reactor. Based on the experimental results, the impact of co-combustion on fuel burnout, NO and SO 2 emissions, fly ash properties, and deposit formation was investigated. 2. Experimental 2.1. Fuels and additives A Columbian bituminous coal and a SRF mainly consisting of waste paper, plastic and wood were chosen as the fuels. The investigated additives included PVC, NaCl, AmSulf and kaolinite. The properties of the fuels and additives are given in Table 1. It can be seen that the SRF is of higher volatile, Cl and Ca content than the coal, while it is of lower ash, N, S, Si, Al, K and Fe content. The additives used in this study are pure compounds from chemical companies, with chemical compositions shown in Table 1. Table 1 Properties of fuels and additives. Properties Coal SRF PVC * NaCl AmSulf Kaolinite LHV (MJ/kg wet) Moisture (wt.% wet) Volatiles (wt.% wet) Ash (wt.% wet) C (wt.% dry) H (wt.% dry) N (wt.% dry) S (wt.% dry) Cl (wt.% dry) Si (wt.% dry) Al (wt.% dry) Mg (wt.% dry) P (wt.% dry).2.2 Ca (wt.% dry) Na (wt.% dry) K (wt.% dry) Fe (wt.% dry).6.28 * The heating value of PVC is estimated from [24]. To be able to feed into the reactor, both the coal and SRF were pulverized by an Alpine Ò pin mill. The particle size distribution of the fuels and additives was determined by a laser diffraction method (Malvern Mastersizer 2 particle size analyzer). It was found that the d5 (meaning that 5 vol.% of the particles is below this size) of SRF is approximately 164 lm, while the d5 of coal is about 19 lm. The d5 of PVC, NaCl, AmSulf, and kaolinite is approximately 14 lm, 259 lm, 222 lm, and 8 lm, respectively. The detailed particle size distribution of the fuels and additives is depicted in Fig. 1. It should be noted that the SRF particles used in this work form agglomerates more easily than the coal particles. Thus, the actual particle size of the SRF in the experiments may be larger than that obtained by the particle size analyzer Setup The experiments were carried out in an entrained flow reactor (EFR) designed to simulate the combustion environment of a suspension fired boiler. A schematic drawing of the setup is shown in Fig. 2. The setup consists of a gas supply system, a fuel feeding system, a gas preheater, a 2-m long vertical reactor which is electrically heated by seven heating elements, a bottom chamber, a particle and gas extraction system, and a deposition system which aims to simulate deposit formation on the superheater tubes of a boiler. A more detailed description of the reactor can be found in [6]. In the co-combustion experiments, the premixed fuels were injected into the reactor together with the primary air. In order to have a comparable residence time (1 s) in different experiments, the flow rate of the primary air and total air was maintained at Cumulative fraction (% vol) Coal SRF NaCl PVC AmSulf Kaolinite Particle diameter (µm) Fig. 1. Particle size distribution of the fuels and additives.

4 1982 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) experiment, the deposits on the probe, the ash from the extraction tubes, cyclone, aerosol filter, and bottom chamber were collected, weighted and preserved for chemical analysis. In order to minimize the influence of deposit built-up inside the reactor, the reactor was heated to 14 C for 2 h after every experiment, to perform high temperature cleaning Experimental matrix 13 Nl/min and 95 Nl/min, respectively. The feeding rate of the fuel particles was controlled by a gravimetric screw feeder, and was adjusted for different experiments in order to control the excess air ratio to be approximately The injected fuel particles were mixed with the preheated secondary air at the inlet of the vertical reactor, and subsequently combusted in the reactor. The temperature of the heating elements in the preheater was 9 C, and the wall temperature of the vertical reactor was set to 1 13 C for all of the experiments, similar to the conditions used in [6]. During the combustion experiments, the bottom ash was collected in a metal collector placed at the bottom chamber. The flue gas from combustion was separated into two fractions. As illustrated in Fig. 2, a minor part of the flue gas was drawn to an extraction system through a water-cooled probe. In the extraction system, the large fly ash particles were collected by a cyclone with a cut diameter of 2.5 lm, and the fine fly ash particles passing through the cyclone were gathered in an aerosol filter using a polycarbonate membrane with a pore size of.1 lm. The concentration of CO, CO 2,O 2, NO and SO 2 was measured in the extraction system by two gas analyzers. Apart from the flue gas drawn by the extraction system, the remaining flue gas from the combustion was directed toward a deposit probe which simulated a superheater tube in a real boiler. In front of the deposition probe, a propane burner was mounted to control the flue gas temperature to be 8 C. It should be noted that the flue gas introduced by the propane burner lowered the concentration of fly ash and vaporized inorganic species in flue gas. The dilution influenced the ash deposition rate on the probe. However, since the propane burner was operated at similar conditions at different experiments, the ash deposition results from different experiments would be comparable. As a result, it is suggested that the tendency of the ash deposition results should be focused in this study, rather than the detailed numbers. The air-cooled deposit probe is made of stainless steel, with an outer diameter of 1 cm and a length of 1 cm. The probe was placed in front of the exit slit of bottom chamber which has a size of 4 8cm 2. By adjusting the temperature of air preheater and the heating tape connected to the probe, the surface temperature of the deposit probe was controlled to be 55 C during the experiments. The duration of an experiment was 1.5 h. In order to achieve a stable combustion condition, the reactor was preheated to operational temperatures and kept over-night, and the fuel injection began 4 min prior to the start of an experiment. After the Fig. 2. Schematic drawing of the entrained flow reactor (modified from [6]). The experimental matrix and the excess air ratio of different experiments are shown in Table 2. When co-firing coal and SRF, the mass share of SRF was chosen to be 7.9 wt.%, 14.8 wt.% and 25. wt.%, which corresponded to a thermal share of 6.3 th%, 12. th% and 2.8 th%, respectively. In the additive experiments, the mass share of coal was maintained at 85.2 wt.%, meaning that the mass share of the secondary fuel (SRF + additive) was kept at 14.8 wt.%. With fixed mass share of coal, the addition of additives simulated a variation of SRF properties. The addition of NaCl (1 wt.% and 2 wt.%) simulated a SRF with a high alkali chloride content, while the addition of PVC (2 wt.% and 4 wt.%) enhanced the chlorine content of SRF. The addition of AmSulf and kaolinite allowed us to study the co-combustion behaviour of SRF with a coal rich in sulphur or aluminosilicates contents. In order to ensure the experiments were carried out at similar combustion conditions, the excess air ratio for different experiments was controlled at around 1.43, as shown in Table Ash/deposit analysis The ash/deposit samples from the experiments were analyzed at the Enstedværket Laboratory, DONG Energy A/S. The content of Al, Ca, Fe, K, Mg, Na, P, Si, Ti, S, and Cl in the bottom ash, cyclone ash, and filter ash was analyzed by ICP-OES (inductively coupled plasma optical emission spectrometry). Furthermore, the water soluble K, Na, Cl and S content in the cyclone ash and deposit was analyzed by ICP-OES/IC. During the analysis of water soluble elemental content, the ash/deposit sample was dissolved in ultrapure water at 12 C for 1 h, and then the solution was filtered and analyzed by ICP-OES/IC. Besides the bulk chemical analysis, the typical morphology and composition of the fly ash from the experiments were characterized by using TEM-EDS (transmission electron microscopy and dispersive X-rays spectroscopy). 3. Results and discussion 3.1. Carbon burnout Fig. 3 shows the carbon burnout from different experiments, which is determined by the ash tracer method [25]: A B ¼ 1 1 A i 1 ð1þ 1 A A i where B (%) is the carbon burnout, A (wt.%) is the ash content of the dry fuel/fuel mixture, and A i (wt.%) is the weighted mean ash content of different ash fractions (bottom ash, cyclone ash, and filter ash) collected from the experiment. The ash content of different ash fractions is obtained by keeping the ash at 75 C for 2 h and measuring the Loss-On-Ignition [26]. From Fig. 3, it can be seen that when coal is co-fired with SRF, the burnout decreases with increasing share of SRF. The burnout in EFR is about 99.5% for coal combustion, whereas it decreases to 97.5% when co-firing of 25 wt.% SRF with coal. Such a tendency is consistent with the CO emission from EFR. The average CO emission in coal combustion is 23 ppmv (dry, 6% O 2 ), while the average CO emission in co-firing of 25 wt.% SRF and coal increases to

5 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) Table 2 Experimental matrix and excess air ratios. Experiment Fuel composition wt.% Feeding rate (kg/h) Excess air ratio Coal SRF NaCl PVC AmSulf Kaolinite 1 a a a a a a a Repetition experiments have been performed. Burnout (%) Coal+SRF Fig. 3. Carbon burnout at different experiments (open symbols denote the experiments with additives). 153 ppmv (dry, 6% O 2 ). The reduced burnout during co-combustion of coal and SRF may be partly related to the particle size of SRF, which is significantly larger than that of coal. Therefore, the SRF particles may require more time to be heated up and combusted. In addition, the SRF particles are found to be partly agglomerated during injection. This would increase the particle size of SRF and lead to a less stable fuel injection condition. Therefore the relatively low burnout observed during co-combustion of coal and SRF may be also related with the lower stability during fuel injection. With higher share of SRF, the fluctuation of CO 2 concentration in the flue gas is increased progressively, which supports the hypothesis of less stable fuel injection. As shown in Fig. 3, the additives generally show a slight reduction effect on the burnout, except for the addition of 2 wt.% NaCl. For the addition of kaolinite and AmSulf, it may be the case that the flame temperature is reduced and result in a slightly lower fuel burnout than that seen from the mixture of coal and SRF. This is likely to happen, since both kaolinite and AmSulf can be decomposed at high temperature and the reactions are endothermic. Compared with the addition of kaolinite and AmSulf, more significant reduction effect can be seen with the addition of 2 wt.% or 4 wt.% PVC. It is likely that the addition of PVC has affected the reactivity of the chars from coal and SRF. In [27], it was found that the presence of PVC could increase the char yield of municipal waste and reduce the char reactivity. In the present work, similar effects may be present and responsible for the reduced burnout during PVC addition. With the addition of NaCl, it may have two contrary effects on burnout. The vaporization of NaCl may result in a lower flame temperature and adversely affect fuel burnout, whereas the catalytic effect of alkali metals on char reactivity may improve burnout [28]. With the addition of 2 wt.% NaCl, the catalytic influence on the char reactivity may become dominant and lead to the observed increased fuel burnout NO emission The NO emission (ppmv, dry, 6% O 2 ) from different experiments is shown in Fig. 4a. It can be seen that the NO emission from cocombustion of coal and SRF decreases with increasing share of SRF, which is in agreement with the lower nitrogen content in SRF compared to coal. The addition of NaCl, PVC or kaolinite shows insignificant effect on NO emission, whereas the addition of Am- Sulf reduces the NO emission greatly. The reduction is likely linked to the NH 3 yielded by the thermal decomposition of AmSulf, which would occur at temperature higher than 257 C [29], with products of NH 3,SO 3 and H 2 O [3]. The released NH 3 may go through two major pathways, i.e. either reacting with O 2 to form NO, or reacting with NO to form N 2 [31]. For the AmSulf used in the present work, the reaction between NO and NH 3 is probably the dominant pathway, which results in a significant reduced NO emission. In order to further investigate the behaviour of AmSulf particles in the experiments, it is necessary to know the decomposition rate of AmSulf particles at different temperature as well as the temperature profile of the particles in the reactor, which are outside the scope of this work. In order to neglect the dilution effect caused by the fuel nitrogen content, the percentage of fuel nitrogen that has been converted to NO is calculated for different experiments, by assuming all the NO in flue gas is formed from fuel nitrogen. From Fig. 4b, it can be seen that the conversion of fuel nitrogen to NO decreases with increasing share of SRF. This is in line with the results from co-combustion of coal and straw/wood, which showed decreased fuel nitrogen conversion to NO with increasing share of straw/ wood [32]. The reduced conversion of fuel nitrogen to NO in cocombustion of coal and SRF is likely related to the high volatile content of SRF, with which a reduction zone with lower excess air ratio may be generated near the burner, when part of the coal is replaced by SRF. The lower oxygen concentration in the reduction zone may inhibit the conversion of fuel nitrogen to NO, resulting in reduced NO formation [32]. In addition, since the formation of thermal NO may not be negligible in the EFR, it may be the case that co-combustion of coal and SRF would result in a lower flame temperature compared to coal combustion, thus leading to a reduced formation of thermal NO. This hypothesis is possible as the flame temperature of a refuse derived fuel (RDF) is found to be 2 3 C lower than the coal flame, given the same excess ratio condition [33] SO 2 emission Fig. 5a shows the SO 2 emission (ppmv, dry, 6% O 2 ) from different experiments. It can be seen that the SO 2 emission decreases slightly with increasing share of SRF. This is consistent with the fuel properties, i.e. the SRF contains less sulphur than the coal.

6 1984 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) NO (ppmv, dry, 6 % O 2 ) (a) Coal+SRF Conversion of fuel N to NO (%) (b) Coal+SRF Fig. 4. (a) NO emission (ppmv, dry, 6% O 2 ) from EFR experiments with different share of SRF and additives and (b) conversion of fuel nitrogen to NO (%) in EFR experiments with different share of SRF and additives, by assuming the NO generated during combustion is only from fuel nitrogen. With the same mass share of secondary fuels, the addition of NaCl, PVC or kaolinite does not significantly affect the SO 2 emission. However, the addition of 4 wt.% AmSulf greatly increases the SO 2 emission, indicating the majority of the SO 3 released from the decomposition of AmSulf has been converted to SO 2 during the experiment. In order to further investigate the influence of co-combustion on the behaviour of sulphur, the percentage of sulphur that is retained in ash is calculated from different experiments, based on the sulphur content and feeding rate of the fuel mixture as well as the composition and amount of the collected bottom ash, cyclone ash and filter ash. As shown in Fig. 5b, the sulphur retention in ash generally increases with increasing share of SRF. A primary reason is that the SRF contains more calcium than the coal, which would favour the formation of calcium sulphate and retain more sulphur in ash. Similar effect has been seen when coal is co-fired with wood of high calcium content [7]. The additives also influence the sulphur retention in ash. For the addition of NaCl, the sulphur retention is increased compared to co-combustion of coal and SRF. This is probably related to the sulphation reaction between the gaseous sulphur and the added NaCl. Similar effects have been observed in straw and coal co-combustion, where the retention of sulphur was found increased in co-combustion due to the high potassium content in straw [32]. With the addition of AmSulf, a significant increase of sulphur retention in ash is observed in Fig. 5b. The higher extent of sulphation reactions between gaseous sulphur and alkali/earth alkaline is probably a primary reason for the increased sulphur retention in ash. In addition, it is likely that part of gaseous sulphur may form H 2 SO 4 during flue gas cooling and condense on the surface of ash particles [34]. In the combustion of bituminous coal in a pulverized coal-fired power plant, it was found that approximately 1% of the sulphur in the fuel could end up as SO 3 [35]. If the same percentage is applied in this work, the concentration of SO 3 in the flue gas will be around 15 ppmv during 4 wt.% AmSulf addition. According to the estimated SO 3 concentration and dew point of SO 3 in flue gas [35], condensation of H 2 SO 4 will likely occur on the surface of the cyclone and filter ash, as these ash particles are collected at a temperature of 1 C during the experiments. For other experiments, the condensation of H 2 SO 4 is probably negligible, as the SO 3 concentration in the flue gas is probably below 5 ppmv. When PVC is added to the mixture of coal and SRF, it is seen that the sulphur retention in ash is slightly increased, and the effect becomes more pronounced with an increasing share of PVC. A possible explanation is that the vaporization degree of alkalis may be promoted by the addition of PVC, as more gaseous alkalis may be released from the fuels due to the formation of alkali chlorides. These alkali chlorides may further react with the gaseous sulphur in flue gas and form alkali sulphates. As a result, more alkali sulphates will be formed, leading to more pronounced sulphur retention in ash. For the addition of 4 wt.% kaolinite, a slight increase of sulphur retention in ash compared to the estimations is seen, which may be linked to the capture effect of the impurities in kaolinite such as K and Na Typical fly ash morphology and composition The morphology of fly ash particles from the EFR experiments has been characterized by transmission electron microscopy (TEM) and dispersive X-rays spectroscopy (EDS). Fig. 6 shows the TEM pictures of the filter ash collected from co-combustion of coal and 14.8 wt.% SRF, which are representative for the fly ash SO 2 (ppmv, dry, 6 % O 2 ) Coal+SRF (a) Sulphur retention in ash (%) (b) Coal+SRF Fig. 5. (a) SO 2 emission (ppmv, dry, 6% O 2 ) from EFR experiments with different shares and types of secondary fuels and (b) the percentage of sulphur retained in the ashes collected from the EFR experiments.

7 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) morphology obtained from the EFR. It can be seen that the fly ash particles generally consist of two parts i.e. spherical particles and agglomerated nucleates. The spherical particles, which dominate the mass of fly ash, are mainly formed from the fragmentation, melting and coalescence of minerals in coal and SRF [36]. The particle size of the spherical particles is normally larger than.5 lm. The majority of these particles have nearly perfect spherical shape, implying that the combustion temperature in EFR is sufficiently high to melt the minerals in coal and SRF. Different from the spherical particles, the nucleates are primarily generated from the vaporized inorganic species via vaporization, reaction, nucleation, and coagulation mechanisms [36]. The primary particles of nucleates usually have irregular shapes with a typical size around 1 2 nm. These nucleates can either form aggregates by themselves or attach to the surface of existing spherical particles. The contribution of nucleates is generally negligible to the formation of supermicron particles. However, for submicron particles, the contribution of nucleate increases progressively with decreasing particle size, and becomes the dominant component for the formation of ultrafine particles around.1 lm [36]. The composition of the spherical particles and nucleates from different experiments has been characterized by TEM-EDS. Fig. 7 shows the typical results from three different experiments. One should be aware that TEM-EDS is a semi-quantitative method which to a large extent depends on the samples selected for analysis. Although the results presented in Fig. 7 are average values from a number of analyses, it is suggested to focus on the tendencies shown by the figure, rather than the precise numbers. From Fig. 7, it can be seen that the composition of spherical particles and nucleates has some general differences. The nucleates are normally characterized by higher Ca, Mg, S and P content, whereas the spherical particles usually have higher Si, Al and K content. Such tendencies are generally in agreement with the fine particle measurement carried out in a full-scale co-combustion test with similar fuels [36]. The influence of SRF and PVC on the composition of spherical particles and nucleates is reflected in Fig. 7. Compared with coal combustion, co-combustion of coal and 14.8 wt.% SRF seems to decrease the Si and S content and increases the K, Na, P and Cl content in the nucleates. The tendencies are mostly consistent with the findings in [36]. When 2 wt.% PVC is added to the coal and SRF mixture, the Si and S content seems to be further decreased in nucleates, while the content of Ca, K, Na, P and Cl is increased. In general, the influence of SRF and PVC addition is found to be more significant on the composition of nucleates than that of spherical particles. This implies that the vaporization of inorganic species may be affected to a large extent when coal is co-fired with SRF and additives, whereas the influence on bulk ash composition is less pronounced. Concentration (wt%) Bulk fly ash composition Coal 14.8%SRF Spherical particles Shperical particles Nucleates Si Al Fe Ca Mg Si Al Fe Ca Mg Nucleates K Na P S Cl K Na P S Cl Fig. 7. Typical composition of the spherical particles and nucleates from the experiments with coal, coal wt.% SRF, and coal + SRF + 2 wt.% PVC Ash composition from coal and SRF co-combustion In Fig. 8, the bulk composition of the cyclone ash and filter ash from co-combustion of coal and SRF is illustrated. For cyclone ash, it can be seen that the ash composition varies progressively with increasing share of SRF. Most of the variations are consistent with the ash composition of the two fuels, such as the tendencies for Al, Fe, K and Ca. However, the tendency for S deviates from the fuel properties. This is primarily due to that the S content in ash is more closely related to the sulphur retention capability of ash, rather than the fuel sulphur content. As aforementioned, the cyclone ash from co-combustion of coal and SRF has higher Ca content than that of coal combustion, which is capable of retaining more gaseous S in ash. Compared to cyclone ash, the filter ash collected from cocombustion of coal and SRF has slightly higher K, Na, P, and S content. The cyclone ash and filter ash collected in this work are separated by a cyclone with cut-off diameter of 2.5 lm. As indicated from the TEM analysis, although the contribution of nucleates to ash formation becomes more significant for smaller particles, the collected filter ash is still dominated by spherical particles formed from the minerals in coal and SRF. Therefore, a possible explanation to the observed higher K and Na content in Fig. 6. Typical morphology of the fly ash particles from the entrained flow reactor.

8 1986 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) Concentration (wt%) Coal 7.9%SRF 14.8%SRF 25%SRF Cyclone ash Cyclone ash Filter ash Si Al Fe Ca Mg Si Al Fe Ca Mg Filter ash K Na P S Cl K Na P S Cl Fig. 8. Bulk composition of the cyclone ash and filter ash collected from cocombustion of coal and different share of SRF. filter ash is that the filter ash may react more effectively with gaseous K and Na compare to the cyclone ash. The influence of particle size on the reactions between aluminosilicates particles and gaseous alkali has been well-demonstrated [37,38]. The relatively higher S content in filter ash as compared to cyclone ash may be related with several reasons. The reactions between the ash and gaseous sulphur may be more efficient for smaller ash particles. In addition, the smaller ash particles would also contain more nucleates which are enriched in S (as illustrated in Fig. 7). For the higher P content in the filter ash, it is primarily due to that the filter ash contain more nucleates compared to cyclone ash. Different SRF shares also influence the filter ash composition. With increasing SRF share, the content of Na, P and S seems to increase progressively. The Cl content in filter ash is also increased slightly with higher share of SRF. However, in general, the Cl content in filter and cyclone ash is below.65 wt.% during cocombustion of coal and SRF (up to 25 wt.%), indicating that the majority of chlorine in the two fuels is released to gas phase during combustion. Concentration (wt%) No additive Cyclone ash Filter ash K Na S Cl K Na S Cl Fig. 9. The content of the K, Na, S and Cl in the cyclone ash and filter ash collected from the experiments with additives, the experiments are all based on a coal share of 85.2 wt.% and a total share of 14.8 wt.% secondary fuels Ash composition from the additive experiments Fig. 9 depicts the influence of additives on the K, Na, S and Cl content in cyclone ash and filter ash. With the addition of NaCl, it can be seen that the content of K, Na, S, and Cl is generally increased in filter ash and cyclone ash. This demonstrates the effect of NaCl addition on co-combustion of coal and SRF. When NaCl is injected together with the coal and SRF mixture, a major part of the NaCl would be vaporized, and the gaseous NaCl may subsequently react with the fly ash and the SO 2 /SO 3 in flue gas. As a result, part of the vaporized NaCl can be fixed in fly ash as sodium silicates or sodium aluminosilicates; whereas part of the NaCl will be converted to sodium sulphate which may further generate nucleates or condense on the surface of existing ash particles. Both mechanisms will release the chlorine to flue gas. For the remaining vaporized NaCl which has not underwent reaction, it may either generate nucleates or condense on the surface of fly ash. Therefore, the observed higher Na content in cyclone and filter ash during NaCl addition is likely due to a combination of the mechanisms mentioned above. Besides the Na content, the K content in fly ash, particularly in filter ash, is also increased during NaCl addition. It may be the case that the addition of NaCl has promoted the reaction between gaseous sodium and fuel minerals, resulting in fewer minerals available for reacting with the gaseous potassium released from the fuels. In addition, the gaseous sodium may displace part of the mineral bound potassium, which will not otherwise be expected to vaporize [37]. Therefore the vaporization degree of K may be enhanced by NaCl addition, and lead to an increased K content in the filter ash. The S content in fly ash is not significantly increased during NaCl addition, implying the reaction between the added NaCl and gaseous sulphur is limited. The Cl content in filter/cyclone ash is increased during the addition of NaCl, particularly with the addition of 2 wt.% NaCl. This indicates that the minerals in coal and SRF may not be sufficient to fully convert the added 2 wt.% NaCl, i.e. a certain fraction of the 2 wt.% NaCl will remain un-reacted during combustion. However, for the addition of 1 wt.% NaCl, the fraction of the un-reacted NaCl is much smaller, as the capture effect of minerals will be more pronounced in this condition. During NaCl addition, the Cl content in filter ash is generally found to be significantly higher than that in cyclone ash, suggesting most of the chlorine will partition to ash through nucleation and/or condensation mechanisms. The addition of PVC does not show a notable effect on the composition of cyclone ash. However, for the filter ash, it is clearly seen that the K, Na and Cl content is increased by PVC addition. It is known that the main gaseous product from the pyrolysis and combustion of PVC is HCl [39]. The higher alkali content obtained during PVC addition implies that the vaporization degree of Na and K may be increased by the presence of HCl. The reaction between the released gaseous alkali and HCl will form alkali chlorides, which may hinder the reaction between gaseous alkali and minerals, since the reaction rate of alkali chlorides and coal minerals is lower than that of alkali hydroxide and coal minerals [38,4]. Furthermore, the gaseous HCl may react with the mineral associated alkalis and result in a higher vaporization degree of alkalis. The influence of different PVC share is obvious in Fig. 9. By increasing the PVC share from 2 wt.% to 4 wt.%, the contents of K, Na and Cl in the filter ash are increased accordingly. The significantly higher Cl content in the filter ash from 4 wt.% PVC addition is likely not only related to an increased formation of alkali chlorides, but also to the formation of calcium chlorides. This hypothesis is supported by the fact that the calcium content in the filter ash is increased from 1.7 wt.% to 3.7 wt.%, when the PVC share is increased from 2 wt.% to 4 wt.%. Moreover, at 2% PVC addition, the molar ratio of water soluble (K + Na)/Cl in filter ash is found to be.46, which also suggests that the presence of calcium chlorides is possible. With the addition of 4 wt.% AmSulf, it is noticed that the S content in both cyclone ash and filter ash is increased. As described in Section 3.3, the higher S content obtained during AmSulf addition is likely a result of the enhanced sulphation reactions between gaseous sulphur and fly ash, and a condensation of H 2 SO 4 during flue gas cooling. The influence of AmSulf addition on the K, Na and Cl

9 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) content in fly ash is generally not significant. With the addition of 4 wt.% kaolinite, the variations of the K, Na and S content are mostly not significant. However, the Cl content in the cyclone ash and filter ash is below detection limit of the instruments, indicating that almost all of the chlorine in the fuels is released to gas phase during the addition of kaolinite Water soluble alkalis in fly ash The results presented in previous section show that the chlorine based additives (NaCl and PVC) can significantly increase the chlorine and alkali content in fly ash, particularly for the case with 2 wt.% NaCl or 4 wt.% PVC addition. It is well-known that the presence of a large quantity of alkali chlorides in flue gas can cause severe ash deposition and corrosion problems during pulverized fuel combustion [3,41]. To investigate the existing forms of alkalis in fly ash, the water soluble alkalis in fly ash have been analyzed for different experiments. In pulverized fuel combustion, the alkalis in the fuels can be converted into water soluble alkalis and water insoluble alkalis. The water soluble alkalis will mainly consist of alkali chlorides and sulphates, whereas the water insoluble alkalis will be dominated by alkali silicates or aluminosilicates. From a practical point of view, it is desirable to convert the alkalis to water insoluble forms, as water soluble alkalis may introduce operation problems such as deposition and corrosion in the boiler and deactivation of the SCR units [6]. Fig. 1a shows the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in the fly ash collected from different experiments. The fly ash composition is calculated from the composition and mass fraction of the collected filter ash and cyclone ash. From Fig. 1a, it can be seen that during co-combustion of coal and SRF, less than 1 wt.% of alkalis appears as water soluble form in fly ash. It implies that majority of fuel alkalis in cocombustion of coal and SRF will present as insoluble forms such as alkali silicates or aluminosilicates. With increasing share of SRF, the change of the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash is insignificant. The effect of additives on the percentage of water soluble alkali/ total alkali is illustrated in Fig. 1a as well. With the addition of 1 wt.% NaCl, the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash increases to approximately 4 wt.%. By increasing the NaCl addition to 2 wt.%, the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash is increased further to about 19 wt.%. This demonstrates that addition of NaCl can increase the percentage of alkalis present in a water soluble form. Furthermore, it appears that the increase of the percentage of water soluble alkali is not linearly correlated with the added amount of NaCl, since the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash becomes approximately five times higher when the addition of NaCl is increased from 1 wt.% to 2 wt.%. In order to explain this, both the release and conversion of alkalis during pulverized fuel combustion need to be considered. When NaCl is added to the mixture of coal and SRF, it will significantly increase the release of Na to gas phase. A certain fraction of the released gaseous alkalis will react with the minerals in the fuels and result in water insoluble alkalis. However, the remaining gaseous alkalis will either stay un-reacted or react with gaseous S and Cl, which will result in water soluble alkalis. With the addition of 1 wt.% NaCl, although the percentage of the released gaseous alkalis is increased significantly, the minerals in the fuels may still be able to react with the majority of the released alkalis, resulting in the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash to be around 4 wt.%. However, when 2 wt.% NaCl is added to the fuel mixture, the fraction of the released gaseous alkali that are converted to insoluble alkali may be significantly reduced, due to the limited amount of the reactive minerals in the fuels. Therefore, a much larger percentage of water soluble alkali/ total alkali (19 wt.%) in fly ash is obtained. However, it should be noted that the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in the fuel mixture is larger than 75 wt.% for the experiment with 2 wt.% NaCl addition. The significant difference between the percentage of water soluble alkali in the fuel mixture and the collected fly ash suggests that a significant fraction of the injected NaCl has been converted to water insoluble alkalis by the minerals in the coal and SRF during combustion. As can be seen in Fig. 1a, the addition of 2 wt.% PVC slightly increases the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash. With the addition of PVC, the release of alkali may be slightly increased, due to the possible interaction between the gaseous chlorine from PVC combustion and the mineral form alkalis. Furthermore, the gaseous chlorine generated from PVC combustion will compete with the fuel minerals for reacting with the released gaseous alkali. With the increased gaseous chlorine concentration, the formation of alkali chlorides will become more pronounced, leading to a higher percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash. It should be noted that the results for 4 wt.% PVC is not shown in the figure, due to the analysis of filter ash from that experiment is not available. As shown in Fig. 1a, the addition of 4 wt.% AmSulf also slightly increases the percentage of soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash. Similar as the PVC case, the increased concentration of gaseous sulphur from AmSulf decomposition may compete with the reaction between gaseous alkali and fuel minerals, resulting in slightly increased formation of water soluble alkalis. With the addition of 4 wt.% kaolinite, a slight decrease of the percentage of water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash is seen. It is likely because that the addition of kaolinite increases the amount of minerals for reacting with the released gaseous alkalis. However, the effect of kaolinite addition is not significant, implying the minerals in the fuel Water soluble alkali/total alkali in fly ash (wt%) Coal+SRF (a) Water soluble K/total K in fly ash (wt%) R 2 =.998 (b) Coal+SRF Water soluble Na/total Na in fly ash (wt%) Fig. 1. (a) Percentage of water soluble alkali in the fly ash from EFR experiments with different share and type of secondary fuels and (b) comparison of the percentage of water soluble K/total K and the percentage of water soluble Na/total Na in the fly ash.

10 1988 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) mixture are sufficient for reacting with the majority of the released gaseous alkalis. To study the behaviour of Na and K separately rather than the total alkalis, the percentage of water soluble Na/total Na in the fly ash is plotted against the same parameter of K in Fig. 1b. A positive correlation is seen between the two parameters, including the cases with NaCl addition. The results shown in Fig. 1b demonstrate that NaCl addition does not only increase the vaporization degree of Na, but also enhances the vaporization degree of K in fuel mixture. The results clearly illustrate that the addition of NaCl may increase the vaporization of K through reacting with the mineral associated K [37], and inhibiting the reaction between gaseous K and reactive minerals. By performing equilibrium calculations in the program HSC 6.1, it is found that the Na-silicates are more thermodynamically favourable than the K-silicates at high temperature. This further supports that the addition of NaCl may increase the release of K, by displacing the mineral associated K radicals by Na radicals Ash deposition Ash deposition rate and propensity In order to evaluate the influence of coal and SRF co-firing as well as different additives on deposit formation in the convective part of a boiler, deposits are collected during the EFR experiments by using an air-cooled deposit probe. The average deposition flux obtained from different experiments is shown in Fig. 11a. It can be seen that when coal is co-fired with SRF, the deposition flux generally decreases with increasing share of SRF. By fixing the total share of secondary fuels to 14.8 wt.%, it is seen that the addition of NaCl/PVC enhances the deposition flux and the effect is more pronounced with higher share of NaCl/PVC. The addition of 4 wt.% kaolinite to the mixture of coal and SRF also increases the deposition flux considerably. However, with the addition of 4 wt.% Am- Sulf, the obtained deposition flux is similar to that of cocombustion of coal and SRF. The deposition fluxes shown in Fig. 11a will be primarily affected by two factors i.e. the ash flux to the probe and the deposition propensity of the ash. For different experiments, the ash flux to the probe will vary due to the variations in the fuel ash content. In order to minimize the effect of ash flux, the obtained deposition flux is divided by the calculated ash flux that is directed to the probe. The obtained deposition flux/ash flux (%) is a parameter that gives implications about the deposition propensity of fly ash. Fig. 11b shows the deposition flux/ash flux from different experiments. It is seen that when coal is co-fired with SRF, the obtained deposition flux/ash flux decreases with increasing share of SRF. This implies that co-combustion of coal and SRF may reduce the deposition propensity of fly ash, compared to coal combustion. The reduced ash deposition propensity may be related to the relatively high calcium content in the ash of SRF, which may generate calcium components with high melting temperature and decrease the fouling tendency of fly ash. Moreover, the average particle size and/or density of the fly ash from co-combustion of coal and SRF may be smaller than those from coal combustion, as the coalescence degree of the ash from SRF would be lower than the coal ash due to the higher char fragmentation degree of the SRF. With smaller fly ash particle size and/or lower density, the inertial impaction efficiency would be decreased and result in reduced ash deposition rate [42]. With the addition of NaCl or PVC, it is seen that the obtained deposition flux/ash flux is higher than that of co-combustion of coal and SRF, and the effect is more significant with increasing share of NaCl/PVC. However, with the addition of AmSulf/kaolinite, the obtained deposition flux/ash flux is slightly lower than that of co-combustion of coal and SRF. To further investigate the possible reasons for the increased or decreased deposition propensity of fly ash, the deposition flux/ash flux obtained from the EFR experiments carried out at 14.8 wt.% secondary fuel is plotted against the Cl content of cyclone ash, which is the major mass constituent of deposits. As shown in Fig. 12, a positive correlation is found between the deposition flux/ash flux and the Cl content in cyclone ash. This indicates that the increased deposition flux/ash flux during the addition of NaCl/PVC is likely linked to the increased concentration of chlorides in fly ash. It is wellknown that alkali chlorides generally have low melting temperatures, thus can significant increase the stickiness of deposits and fly ash particles, and enhance the ash deposition rate [8,43]. However, when the Cl content in cyclone ash is lower than.1 wt.%, it is seen that the deposition flux/ash flux decreases slightly with increasing Cl content in cyclone ash. It implies that the influence of other factors (such as the particle size and density of the fly ash) may become more significant for the deposition propensity of fly ash, when the Cl content in cyclone ash is remarkably low. One should be aware that the deposition rates obtained in this study are based on an experimental period of 1.5 h, which are quite different from the deposit build-up time scale in a real boiler. In addition, the ash deposition rate in the experiments is affected by the dilution effect caused by the propane burner. Therefore, it is considered that the results shown in Fig. 12 will provide information about the deposition propensity of fly ash from co-combustion of coal and SRF as well as the effect of additives. However, the detailed numbers may deviate from the ash deposition rates in a practical boiler. Deposition flux (g/h/cm 2 ) Coal+SRF (a) Deposition flux/ash flux (%) Coal+SRF (b) Fig. 11. (a) Deposition fluxes (g/h/cm 2 ) from EFR experiments with different shares and types of secondary fuels and (b) the values of deposition flux/ash flux (%) from experiments with different shares and types of secondary fuels.

11 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) Deposition flux/ash flux (%) R 2 =.912 Coal+14.8%SRF Cl content in cyclone ash (wt%) Fig. 12. A comparison of the deposition flux/ash flux (%) from different EFR experiments and the Cl content of the cyclone ash obtained in the experiments. The results shown in the figure are carried out with the same total share of secondary fuels (14.8 wt.%) but different additives Deposit composition The composition of the deposits is of importance, since it is closely related to the corrosion potential of the superheaters [3]. In Fig. 13, the content of water soluble element in fly ash is plotted against the content of water soluble element in deposits. It can be seen that the content of water soluble K and Na in deposits is generally similar to that of fly ash. This tendency is consistent with a previous study on deposit composition from co-firing of coal and straw [6]. The only case that deviates from this tendency is the experiment with 2 wt.% NaCl. In this experiment, the K content in the deposit is lower than that of fly ash, whereas the Na content in the deposit is slightly higher. According to Fig. 1, it is known that approximately 2 wt.% of Na and 17 wt.% of K in fly ash would exist as water soluble form in this experiment. The results shown in Fig. 13 indicate that the deposition propensities for the water soluble Na and K may be different. This is likely linked to the different condensation characteristics of NaCl and KCl. By performing equilibrium calculation in HSC 6.1, it is found that the condensation temperature of KCl is lower than NaCl, and can be below 8 C. In the EFR experiments, the flue gas temperature around the deposition probe is about 8 C. At this temperature, part of the KCl in flue gas may not be condensable, resulting in a depletion of water soluble K in the deposits as compared to that of fly ash. However, the majority of NaCl will be condensable at 8 C, thus no depletion of Na is observed. The water soluble sulphur is also generally enriched in deposits compared to that of fly ash. A possible mechanism for the enrichment of sulphur is that condensed phase sulphation reaction may occur on the deposits, which can convert a fraction of chlorides in the deposits to sulphates. Such reactions can be significant at temperature higher than 75 C [44]. An exceptional case shown in Fig. 13 is that when AmSulf is added to the fuel mixture, the content of water soluble sulphur in fly ash becomes similar to that in the deposits. In this situation, due to the high gaseous sulphur concentration, it is likely that condensation of H 2 SO 4 can occur on the surface of the collected fly ash particles and increase the content of water soluble sulphur, whereas the condensation of H 2 SO 4 cannot occur on the deposits due to the high gaseous/surface temperature. This may lead to the content of water soluble S in the cyclone ash being similar to that of deposits. Different from sulphur and alkalis, the content of water soluble Cl is mostly depleted in deposits, in comparison with that of fly ash. This implies that the initially formed deposits probably contain similar water soluble Cl as the fly ash. However, as discussed previously, the deposited chlorine may undergo sulphation reaction with the gaseous sulphur in the flue gas. Such gas solid sulphation reaction will result in a depletion of the water soluble Cl in the deposits compared to fly ash. Although the sulphation.5.4 K Coal+SRF.8 Na.6 Water soluble content in deposit (wt%) S Cl Water soluble content in fly ash (wt%) Fig. 13. The content of water soluble K, Na, S and Cl from different experiments.

12 199 H. Wu et al. / Fuel 9 (211) reaction is present, it can still be seen that the deposits from the experiments with NaCl/PVC addition have considerable higher chlorine content than that from co-combustion of coal and SRF. Furthermore, it was observed during the experiments that the deposition probe was slightly corroded with the NaCl/PVC addition, implying that the corrosion potential on superheater tubes will be higher when the SRF contains significant high alkali chlorides or chlorine content. However, without the additives, the content of water soluble chlorine is generally lower than.1 wt.% in deposits, indicating a low potential for corrosion [3]. 4. Conclusion In this work, co-combustion of a bituminous coal and a solid recovered fuel (SRF) was carried out in an entrained flow reactor, and the effect of additives such NaCl, PVC, ammonium sulphate (AmSulf), and kaolinite on co-combustion was investigated. The experimental results showed that when coal was co-fired with SRF, the carbon burnout decreased with increasing share of SRF. The addition of additives generally reduced the burnout, except for the case with 2 wt.% NaCl which showed a promoting effect. The NO emission in co-combustion of coal and SRF decreased with increasing share of SRF. The additives generally did not affect the NO emission significantly, expect for the AmSulf which greatly inhibited the NO formation. The SO 2 emission in co-combustion of coal and SRF also decreased with increasing share of SRF. However, the retention of sulphur in ash was found to increase with increasing share of SRF, which was likely linked to the high calcium content in the SRF. All of the additives increased the retention of sulphur in ash, either due to chemical reactions or physical absorptions. The typical fly ash morphology and composition were characterized by TEM-EDS. The fly ash from the experiments mainly consisted of spherical particles and agglomerated nucleates, with the later being more important for the formation of submicron particle. The nucleates were normally characterized by higher Ca, Mg, S and P content, whereas the spherical particles usually have higher Si, Al and K content. Such findings are in agreement with a fullscale fine particle measurement carried out on similar fuels [36]. Analysis of the bulk fly ash composition from the experiments showed that the majority of S and Cl in the fuels were released to the gas phase during combustion, while the K and Na in the fuels were mainly retained in ash. In co-combustion of coal and SRF (up to 25 wt.%), the majority of K and Na (99 wt.%) appeared in the fly ash in a water insoluble form i.e. as aluminosilicates or silicates. The addition of NaCl, PVC, and AmSulf generally increased the vaporization of K and Na, resulting in increased formation of water soluble alkalis, whereas the addition of kaolinite showed a slight reduction effect. The experimental results demonstrated that the minerals in coal and SRF would be able to react with part of the gaseous alkalis released from the additives. Furthermore, the vaporization degree of Na and K was found to be correlated, suggesting an interaction between the vaporization of Na and K during pulverized fuel combustion. Ash deposits were collected on an air-cooled probe during the experiments to simulate boiler deposit formation. The ash deposition rate and the deposition propensity of fly ash in co-combustion were found to decrease with increasing share of SRF. The addition of NaCl and PVC increased the ash deposition propensity, and a positive correlation between the ash deposition propensity and the Cl content in cyclone ash was found. The Cl content in the deposits generally indicated low corrosion potential during co-combustion of coal and SRF (up to 25 wt.%). However, for the experiments with NaCl and PVC addition, the corrosion potential on superheater tubes would be considerably high. The water soluble alkali content in deposits was generally similar to that of fly ash. Higher water soluble sulphur content and lower water soluble chlorine content were found in the deposits than of fly ash, suggesting the presence of gas solid sulphation reaction in deposits. The results from this work indicate that co-combustion of coal and SRF may not put any additional burden on the NO and SO 2 emission of a pulverized coal-fired power plant. The burnout in the plant may be affected by co-combustion. The selection of a suitable SRF particle size is desirable, but it would to a large extent depend on the physical properties (such as density and shape) of the SRF [12,45], the detailed configuration of the plant and the injection method of the SRF [46]. By using the coal and SRF used in this work, co-combustion of coal and up to 25 wt.% SRF may not cause severe ash deposition and corrosion problems in the convective part of the boiler, possibly due to the positive synergy effects between the coal ash and the inorganic components in SRF. This work also implies that in order to minimize ash deposition and corrosion problems in co-combustion, it is important to control the quality of the SRF, especially the chlorine and alkali contents. Lastly, it should be noted that results obtained in this work are from a lab-scale reactor with some conditions deviate from the real plants. 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